We got to visit the house on another blue sky winter day while the flooring installers were working on the second floor. Despite the clear skies the abundant sun does little to warm anything with temperatures in the single digits. Night time temperatures are dipping into the negative territories, so this month will be a good test to see how energy efficient the house really is. Not much work was completed this week, which is a little expected, but also a little confusing. I saw trucks there every day this week, but can't figure out what was accomplished. There was a little progress in the kitchen, but not as much as I expected. Floors on the second floor progressed a little, but not as I would have thought possible after a few days of work. None of the tile back splashes installed in previous weeks were grouted. It's like we're reaching the limit of completeness, but will never reach it. Hopefully thinks will pick up soon and we can really think about moving.
The cold temperatures and nearly weekly snowfalls keep the snow packed hard on the driveway with no hope of thawing out. I'm resigned to having a snow driveway this winter unless we get a little warm up because I don't think even a snow plow will be able to break through the hard pack ice and snow now. Maybe if I can get some salt down, we could clear it a bit. It's not slippery, but would prefer if it wasn't there. Two of the flooring installers were at the house when we arrived so at least there's evidence of effort, even if it is slower than I Would want.
Behind the scenes, work is building up for the electricians. There are a few other tasks for the electricians to complete but we were waiting on the hardware for the Coppersmith light that will be installed in the barrel vault at the front door. The replacement for the broken sconce glass was also delivered so I think the electricians will be called back to complete the rest of these installations. They still need to perform the final hookup of the Tesla charger in the garage and install a NEMA 14-50 plug. IT seems like they don't like to come to the site unless there's a lot of work, so there should be enough for them to do now.
Painters tape dot the walls as evidence that we're in the final stretch of building. Either Mike, the painters, or both parties are placing small pieces of tape on every little blemish to they can be corrected. Paint drips, dents in the walls and woodworking, missing paint, and cracks that need caulk top the list of things that need to be corrected. I think this step will come before the final finishing of the floors, then we'll be all done. We also brought our own roll of tape because Tanja is very particular about how things work and finds many more mistakes than I do. It will take a few trips to mark everything, but it's an important step in the finishing process. It's much better to get all the mistakes corrected at once when the painter is on site than to repair things we find later piece meal.
The chimney on the hood was installed this week, covering the huge, unsightly pipe and all the wires connecting the remote blower to the hood controls. Although it's not our first, or second, pick for a hood, I think it looks good enough for now and functions well. The hood chimney had to be wide because the exhaust pipe was large and off centered. This off centering made the wide pipe necessary and excluded many selections for our hood. I think if we one day have enough money, we'll purchase our original choice vent-a-hood, and sell this one.
The cabinet panel was installed on the front of the dishwasher, but the machine itself isn't permanently set into the space and can shift around. This is probably done so we can get perfect alignment on the surrounding cabinet panels. I think there's also supposed to be some hardware installed on the front of the panel so it matches the rest of the hardware, but it has yet to be installed. The panel should be pretty easily removable so the hardware installation shouldn't be difficult.
The packing material is starting to disappear from the cabinet installation. This is the first time we're seeing the vertical pull out to the right of the dishwasher. Since the dishwasher is in the space to the right of the kitchen sink, this places this vertical pull out just one cabinet away from the kitchen sink. This pull out has one round storage area for spatulas and other tall cooking tools, and two black areas for knives. There's also a shelf below, but most of the space is occupied by the knife block, so I'm not sure what we'll put there. I wasn't sure what kind of knife arrangement would be in these things, but I'm pleasantly surprised by what's there.
The "block" is actually filled with thick plastic bristles, for lack of a better description. That allows you to put the knife in anywhere you want in the block. They're packed tightly enough so the knives stay upright and since they're plastic, won't dull or damage the blade in any way. The actual knife organization is up to you since the knives can go anywhere, but having two blocks will help keep the smaller knives away from the larger ones.
The panel for the refrigerator was picked up from the store. If you'll recall, the appliance company didn't deliver the panel when they made the initial delivery. After some calls and searching, they found it at the warehouse and delivered it to the store for Mike's guys to pick up. Now that it's in the house, it can be installed on the fridge and we can complete the appliance install. I have a little concern about the suction power of the hood. It doesn't feel as strong as I thought it would. Although I can feel some cool air coming in at the baseboard from the make up air, the relay to open the baffle isn't installed yet, so the pipe isn't wide open. Porter and Heckman say that the house is so tight, that turning on the hood vent fan will create a vacuum, which is why we're not getting full suction. I'll test out that theory next time I'm out there by opening the door and turning on the fan. They might have the relay installed by then too, so I can test it out that way.
Progress on the wood floor on the second floor has been slow. I thought I saw them come a few times this week, but the only progress is to finish the rest of the rotunda walkway. This section probably takes a bit more time to complete since they need to not only fit the double curve of the wall and railing, but fit the railing perfectly since there's no shoe molding to cover gaps. Even still, I would have expected much more progress. Mike said that he tries to push them, but it's a delicate balance right now. There's more work than workers out there so they all have the option to take other jobs if they don't like the job they're on. Crappy work ethic, but unfortunately true. Also, they miscalculated and we needed to order more floor. That came in, but it we need to order another 200 square feet since some of the delivered material is from a different dye lot.
Here's a look towards the turret bedroom of the wood floor progress. They pretty much terminated the hallway runs into the room, right at the threshold, but the courses will run into the room continuously. It would have been a nice touch if they could have gotten a longer piece from the rotunda into the bedroom, but this is good enough. As long as there's not a clean break at the door threshold, the floor should look continuous.
Here's the transition of the wood floor in the rotunda to the laundry room. No elevation change and no threshold. This is what we wanted for the whole house and achieved it everywhere but the master bathroom. This is covered perfectly with a closed door and there's no real crack between the two materials to speak of so it should be easy to clean.
I found these two light fixtures in the garage, waiting to be installed. The small dome light on the left is going to be mounted on the garage ceiling above the rear garage door. There wasn't enough space between the garage door and ceiling to mount the LED shop lights so this will go in its place. Even without it, there's enough light, but this will get rid of the minor dark spot a missing light will cause. The one of the right is for the side of the garage and will illuminate the walk around porch when it's installed.
That's about it for this week. I'm hoping next week will bring better progress, but there aren't many tasks left to complete. We should be getting final electrical inspection this week with final HVAC to soon follow. Hopefully the tile and flooring installations will progress so we can get done with the final touch ups and get the floor cleaned and waxed. This feels like it's going to stretch to the end of January now so I'm hoping for a late February move. The weather is forecast to be in the 50's this week so maybe we'll get some of the snow to melt off the driveway so I can clear it.
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